Food, Inc.

An excellent film that kept us interested all the way through, except I feel too much time was spent on the woman who lost a child and we fast forwarded through some of that. I am sorry for her loss but it just dragged on too long. My skeptical husband since bought the DVD and has been passing it around to friends, who now want me to raise all their chicken and pork for them :-DUnlike PETA films this one does not try to gross you out and make you a vegetarian. There are a few short graphic scenes but rather than try to sicken you, the message they are trying to get across is how a handful of Big Ag companies control over 80% of America's food supply, and how politically powerful and nearly untouchable these companies are. It all seems very bleak, but at the end you are told how you can get better control of your own food supply... for example raise whatever you can, buy direct from the farmer at the farm or at farmers' markets, at the very least eat simpler and make as much as possible from scratch and fresh foods rather than buying prepackaged, highly processed foods.One point I would like to make about the chickens is that they are not "forced" to grow unnaturally fast as some reviewers say... they have been BRED to grow that way. I grow the same chickens, Cornish Cross broilers, in my "back yard" (we have 10 acres). Mine spend the first three weeks in the brooder til they are feathered out, and in addition to meat bird starter get hand pulled clover and grass with dirt and roots, as well as all the fine hay bits leftover from feeding other animals. After moving to pasture pens I cut their high-powered Meat Grower feed with 25% plain scratch because in my first batch, before I cut the feed, I did have a few keel over from congestive heart failure from too-rapid growth. They also get moved to fresh grass 2-3x daily. No problems with the next two batches -- I ordered 75 chicks and was shipped 79 (a good hatchery always includes a few extras) in those batches and had only 3 die, and those within the first few days, weak ones/shipping stress. I butchered from 6 to 8 weeks of age and while I did not weigh them, visually they were almost all larger than the storebought birds which are usually 3-1/2 to 4 lbs. In fact some were Godzilla chickens, about 8-10 lbs!I love meat and will never be vegetarian unless I am forced to it. Some people will take this movie as a call to vegetarianism. I see it as a reason to buy your food direct from the farmer who grows it, one who allows you to visit the farm personally and see how it is raised. "Organic" simply means the animal was fed organically-grown feed. The animals can still be raised in terrible conditions and their meat labelled "Organic". "Cage Free" and "Free Range" does not mean the birds are happily running around a pasture... it can mean there are still hundreds or thousands crowded at a square foot per bird into buildings, with all their food,water and shade inside so even if there is one small door to the "free range" outside they are likely not going to use it.I want to know how my meat was raised and how it died and was processed. I am lucky in that I can raise and home butcher my own pork and chicken and buy my beef from a friend who raises her animals the same way I do. Many cities are allowing folks within the city limits to keep chickens, so anyone can now keep their own for eggs or meat. My own town has no regs against livestock at all and I know a man in the middle of town who raised a pig in his back yard last year. He does have a large lot and kept the pen scrupulously clean so the neighbors would not have any complaints about smell. Laying hens and meat birds make a lot less noise than your average dog. Just don't keep any roosters to avoid annoying the neighbors (with meat birds sex doesn't matter, they are butchered long before they begin crowing).

This award-winning documentary along with the documentary "King Corn" had a profound effect on me and has permanently changed my lifestyle and diet. I am not a counter-culture, idealistic college student--I am a retired college professor who was in the health professions my entire career. What has happened to our food supply as a result of providing "abundant cheap food" in the U.S. since 1973 is eyeopening and a wake-up call to each of us regarding what we eat and support through our food dollars as individuals and as a nation. "Our bodies are not just what we eat but what we eat, eats". The control of U.S. agriculture by a very few large agribusiness companies; limiting the number of crops grown and varieties; the modification of seeds and trademarking life forms has implications that could prove diasterous not only to us but the entire world's food supply.Organic foods and sustainable farming offers people an option to purchase and eat foods which are not loaded with pesticide and herbicide residues; to eat and drink dairy products, eggs and meat animals that are not loaded with growth hormones to spur production and to put weight on quickly to maximize profits of the huge companies; to decrease the potential of causing "superbugs" resistant to antibiotics caused by the administration of continuous antibiotics to keep food animals alive under unnatural and horrific conditions being fed #2 field corn (which they would never eat if allowed a normal life before slaughter for food.) Cattle evolved to eat grass, not grain and the effects on the animal are known but ignored--our beef today contains only 60% of the protein it contained in the mid 1950s thanks to meat packers wanting the highly marbled (read fat)beef. Fish farmers are even trying to get salmon and tilapia to accept #2 field corn feed. The high fructose corn syrup and other products from #2 field corn are in almost all of our grocery products on the market--even those items we do not think of as being sweet. I no longer wonder why people have such a hard time losing weight when most of us eat a diet loaded with hormones given to animals to put on weight quickly and high fructose corn syrup in almost everything we eat.The U.S. government does not allow genetically-modified food to be labelled; as a result a number of European countries will no longer import certain foods from the U.S. since they require the labelling of genetic modification to grains, fruits and vegetables. No one (no one) knows the long term effects of using bacteria and viruses to introduce foreign genes from other species into food we eat.The health risks and costs of "abundant cheap food"---what it has done to small family farms that did not go along with big agribusiness practices; the requirement of more and more pesticides which may be partially responsible for the abandonment of hives and death of thousands of our pollinators esp. the honey bee. Principles of organic farming which enriches the soil, is better for the farmer, farm animals and us is more expensive than what most of us have been eating everyday. As a consumer and someone concerned about the implications of standard, modern agricultural practices, I am willing to pay more for the farmer to farm organically--I support fair-trade and believe the farmer and his family need to be to support themselves and their way of life.As a result of the documentaries my diet is now as much organic as possible; I no longer eat beef, pork, chickens, dairy or eggs produced by the big food processors. I now read labels on the food products I buy to make sure I am not ingesting sweeteners made from #2 field corn. I try to buy wild, Alaskan salmon rather than farmed or Atlantic salmon. I believe my diet is now more nutritious and tastier than ever before. My granddaughter has her master's degree in nutrition and she and her parents have also made changes in their diet from the belief that they will be healthier.I recommend this documentary and "King Corn" to anyone interested in their health and nutrition.